many developing countries as a result of, for example, 

 locating large industrial sites adjacent to coastal 

 waters which are also being developed for tourist 

 purposes and which have traditionally served the region 

 as a primary source of fisheries products. 



We need to learn more about the earth's estuarine 

 and coastal resources, including how to manage them to 

 ensure sustained, multiple use wherever possible. in 

 certain cases, as in the rather complex array of water 

 movements from within estuaries to the continental 

 shelf and along the continental shelf where the ocean 

 meets the more shallow water, adequate background 

 information has not been available. However, we are 

 now seeking this information, and it should add 

 considerably to our understanding of coastal fisheries, 

 distribution of wastes, and the extent to which 

 offshore mining and recovery of other mineral resources 

 may affect the potential for using marine resources in 

 adjacent areas. 



Rationale for Selecting this Topic 



Partly as a result of the U.N. Conference on the 

 Law of the Sea, coastal countries will acquire new 

 rights to, and responsibilities toward, living 

 resources and protection of the marine environment 

 within 200 miles of their shores. The effective 

 exercise of these rights and responsibilities (for 

 example, as they pertain to the rational management and 

 conservation of living resources) will require much 

 more scientific understanding than is now available. 

 Coastal countries will also gain complete control over 

 marine scientific research in their exclusive economic 

 zones, which has prompted many scientists to fear that 

 research sponsored by laboratories in developed 

 countries will be seriously inhibited at a time when 

 most developing coastal countries lack capabilities for 

 conducting their own research. 



It is in the long-term interest of the United 

 States that we learn more about the oceans and apply 

 that knowledge worldwide to the management and 

 conservation of resources and to protection of the 

 marine environment. Thus the development of foreign 

 marine science capabilities by means of cooperative 

 research programs is clearly to be desired. 



Recent, large-scale international oceanographic 

 programs such as the International Decade of Ocean 

 Exploration and the Global Atmospheric Research Program 

 (GARP) have begun to analyze ocean/atmospheric coupling 

 which contributes to the variability in structure, 

 function, and productivity of the world's oceans. 

 Testable hypotheses and theories now exist on the 



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